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manussasāṭheyye

manussasāṭheyya

nt acc pl of manussasāṭheyya (noun); nt loc sg of manussasāṭheyya (noun)

1. human deviousness; treachery of men

Built from

• manussá — root · human
  From *man- (to think, mind). Related to English man, Latin mēns (mind), Greek menos (spirit, thought). The sense shifted from mental capacity to the thinking being itself.
• sāṭheyya — stem · deviousness, crookedness
  Derived from sāṭha (twisted, crooked, devious). The suffix -eyya forms an abstract noun. sāṭha may relate to the idea of bending or twisting away from the straight path.

Analysis. manussasāṭheyya is a dvandva compound of manussá (human) + sāṭheyya (fraud, trickery, crookedness). It denotes the characteristic deceitfulness or twisted dealings of human beings.

Etymology. manussá < Indo-European *man- (think, mind; cognates: English man, Latin mēns, Greek menos). sāṭheyya derives from sāṭha (crooked, twisted, devious), probably from a root meaning to bend or distort.

Meanings from the Digital Pāḷi Dictionary; morphology and etymology by Claude.

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